The Lawrence City Commission’s decision to hire a consultant to help the city address issues related to affordable housing and economic development could work out, but only if commissioners are prepared to accept the consultant’s input.

On Tuesday, commissioners voted unanimously to hire National Development Council for six months at $6,150 per month, primarily to provide analyses on development projects seeking tax incentives from the city but also to help the city with its efforts to develop affordable housing in Lawrence. The city’s agreement with National Development Council includes an option to extend the contract for another six months.

Commissioners voted to authorize the contract despite the fact that the city already has an economic development coordinator (Britt Crum-Cano) on staff whose job it is to provide commissioners with the same information and recommendations NDC was hired to provide. It went unsaid Tuesday night, but some commissioners simply don’t trust the information the city has used to justify incentives on past projects. In fact, Commissioners Stuart Boley, Matthew Herbert and Leslie Soden, all elected in 2015, campaigned on the idea that previous commissioners were overusing incentives.

Credit City Manager Tom Markus with arranging for a way to get the commissioners a second opinion on incentives.

“I think what you have is an independent look at those programs,” Markus said. “…When you know what’s going into the analysis to determine whether the incentive was legitimate or not, and you’re able to query the (consultant) about those things, I think you have a better opportunity to be more confident in what you’re looking at.”

Markus said Crum-Cano would work closely with NDC, giving her an opportunity to consider different perspectives and add new metrics in evaluating economic development projects.

Commissioners won’t have to wait long before getting NDC’s input on projects. On Nov. 1, the commission has public hearings on incentive requests for two mixed-use residential development projects, one at 826 Pennsylvania St. and the other at 815 Vermont St.

To a degree, the hiring of NDC is an abdication of city commissioners’ responsibilities. Commissioners couldn’t agree on what direction to head with incentives, so they hired a consultant — at considerable cost — to make the decisions for them. But such a process is only going to work if commissioners — who were unanimous in the decision to hire NDC — are prepared to follow the consultant’s direction, even if they don’t agree or if that direction sounds a lot like what Crum-Cano has offered in the past.